Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Grinderman 2: Track by Track

Pedestrian.tv has a GREAT little track-by-track interview with Grinderman.

"MICKEY MOUSE & THE GOODBYE MAN"Nick Cave: Mickey Mouse & The Goodbye Man sets up a kind of narrative that is echoed throughout the songs on the record and it became the first song because it’s there for that reason and also because it’s very direct. It’s a rock n roll song in a strange kind of way and I think it drags people into the record pretty effectively.

"WORM TAMER"NC: Well, Worm Tamer, for me, is one of the most extraordinary songs I’ve ever been involved in all the years of making music. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. It’s got a wry kind of lyric to it, but sonically it’s really extraordinary and I can’t really describe it, you just have to kind of hear it. There’s something really mental about it, I think.Warren Ellis: Worm Tamer is a very dense number. It’s one that’s going to be interesting to play live, I think. It’s the one song that really doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before. I think it’s very unique-sounding that song. I really love it; that one and Kitchenette, I think, are probably my favourite songs on the album.

"HEATHEN CHILD"Jim Sclavunos: Heathen Child, which is the first single to be taken off Grinderman 2, is very groovy, infectiously groovy, deeply and profoundly groovy. You might say it’s a predatory groove; but you can bump and grind to it (even if you’re not a predator). You can belly dance to it, assuming you have the right physique. You can even do the huckabuck, if you are particularly agile. I believe it also lends itself to long private episodes in the bathtub… if the video is any evidence.

"EVIL"JS: The song Evil, I believe, will endure to prove that it has a timeless appeal, very much like the appeal of its subject matter.

"KITCHENETTE"NC: Well, Kitchenette is kind of a down home, dirty, stoner blues. It’s Warren’s favourite song on the record, I think.WE: Well yeah, I really love Kitchenette ‘cause it just has such a wonderful loose feel to it and I think it actually feels… For me it’s one of the best vocals I’ve heard Nick do. It’s really so relaxed and the phrasing is fantastic and it just feels like you’re really in a moment with it. You feel like you’re listening to it as it unfolds, which is actually what it is. I really love that song. I could listen to that one song over and over.JS: The track Kitchenette offers a sobering look at the sordid conditions of modern marriage and family life and the various temptations and disillusionment besetting this institution. And all of this has been set to a relentless, sinister and growling groove.

"WHAT I KNOW"NC: Once again, that was a piece that was a moment we captured, purely improvised, that was within this period, when we originally recorded stuff, and it was just this really beautiful quiet kind of moment that was had and we just chopped it out and kind of pasted it into the record.JS: What I Know has a very different feel for Grinderman. It spotlights our more introspective side. I would liken it to a delicate, fragile bauble being caressed by a mesmerized Cro-Magnon.

"BELLRINGER BLUES"JS: Bellringer Blues is a battlefield hallucination set to stoner funk. It was the sleeper track of thealbum and I think it’s a perfect album closer, as it draws the curtains on the troubled affairs of the album with an air of triumphant rapture.